B Team

As you all know, I enjoy history of theology. Usually when we study the history of faith we like to emphasize the stalwart heroes. Those are good and inspiring stories after all. We all know how much Athanasius suffered and how brilliantly he fought both the Arians and the progressive Originians (at least you should if you've ever read this blog). Luther was a lighting rod with the strength to withstand the charge that began the reformation that was years in the making.

Yet we know that for every Athanasius there's a Liberius and for every Luther there's a Melanchthon. The ones who fell down a few times. Hard. I find that people with no experience of such pressure and a Donatist streak in their hearts like to reach through the ages to push them down all over again. Yet in many ways, they exemplify the struggles of the faithful better than their stronger contemporaries. Not everyone has the strength to stand contra mundum. Not everyone is meant to. We repeat the story of Peter's betrayal, understanding he was forgiven, but often do not extend the same to those who followed after him.

So I love Athanasius and Luther, but I understand Liberius and Melanchthon. And I think if most of us were honest with ourselves we would. We aren't Athanasiuses (as much as we would like to pretend we are while arguing with losers on the internet). We don't have his brilliance or his foresight or his ability to know which battles to pick and how to pick them. Most of us are b team with the other rejects.

Liberius had both the weight of exile and of his flock back at home on his shoulders. In the end it proved too hard to be separated from them all. His lapse was certainly a disappointment and it seems he tried hard to forget it. He capsized in humiliation and weakness.

I have often thought Philipp Melanchthon was a man in some ways out of his own time, faulted for lacking conviction and being too conciliatory (today he'd probably be commended for his irenicism). He seemed so unsuited to the role foistered on to him-the scholar now following around in Luther's wake like a clean up crew of one, apologizing for all the destruction. He tried hard to build bridges--but too often those bridges led to nowhere and he wavered and foundered in trying to build them. While he did show weakness of conviction, he struggled to do what he thought was best. It turned out it wasn't.

As much as I'd like to hang with Athanasius, this sounds like my team.

In the end I think we need to give the less than heroic brothers a break. They have much to teach us. If the Christian life really is one of repentance as Melanchthon's great friend said, it requires some ugly and abject defeats. But our failures could not give up on the faithfulness of God even when they had to give up on themselves as sunken wrecks and disappointments. They, not the heroes, are the ones who remind us of the faithfulness of God in Christ to the faithless, to the broken. When one is sinking in the sea, one can only reach out in one direction. In weakness, they can only point to him.

Already but Not Yet

The early months of the change of year always strike me as a micro version of the already and the not yet. This little parenthesis celebrating newness impresses that tension we still live in. A new year, a new decade-it reminds us of the time when all things will be new. But tragedy and failure quickly rush in to remind us that we're not there yet. Soon resolutions will be broken or forgotten (if they aren't already) and the bite of our "sameness" will be felt.

Things are different now, yet things are predictably the same. The old is still following along behind us. It's still the middle of winter, it's still cold and dark. But then we are reminded by these things that there is "new promise in the night". Even now, wheels are slowly turning. And we know instinctively that the new will one day come and with Christ has already begun. So with creation, we continue at times like this to groan for that final arrival.

Though the expectation that things will be different just by the change on the date on the calendar seems arbitrary I think it reveals our longing for the reality of a truly new year, one where all the hopes and dreams made for it are going to come to pass. We, as sojourners in the world, look at new beginnings and see the place we started out, and the place where we are going. So we wait for the time when all things are made new as we are. We live in our tents and await our kingdom, hoping with each passing year this will be the one.We wonder how long we will have to live with the old, the broken promise, the quickly spoiled year, the ravages of our flesh. God alone knows. So even while we see this age, we look past it to the age to come.

It is another time to say even so, Come Lord Jesus.

The Glory of Christ

that real view which we may have of Christ and his glory in this world by faith,--however weak and obscure that knowledge which we may attain of them by divine revelation,—is inexpressibly to be preferred above all other wisdom, understanding, or knowledge whatever...

The revelation made of Christ in the blessed Gospel is far more excellent, more glorious, and more filled with rays of divine wisdom and goodness, than the whole creation and the just comprehension of it, if attainable, can contain or afford. Without the knowledge hereof, the mind of man, however priding itself in other inventions and discoveries, is wrapped up in darkness and confusion.

John Owen, The Glory of Christ, preface to the reader.

As he lay dying, Owen was notified of the pending publication of this work. To this he replied that he had finally arrived at the long awaited day when he would see that glory in a way that he had never seen or could even imagine seeing in this world. He was ready to finally see the glory of Christ, truly as it is, with no glass, no veil. One can't help but think he was ready even as he wrote the words above. Ready to pass from glory to glory, and be transformed.




I am busy with school so I don't have time for much else but I hate the feely paper I have to write for class next week so I am skiving off at the moment. Athanasius is visiting SIAST library for a year (and everyone insists I should declare him finished-he is NOT finished-admittedly he might never be). Some people really gushed over him which was a little embarrassing, and one woman told me she was glad he wasn't white. (Anglicans...) But everyone seemed to recognize his indomitable stare, so that was cool. Hey I conveyed something.

Anyway I started John Owen as a brother for Athanasius over the summer-the noil was as difficult as ever to dye. I did it in logwood, let it soak for weeks, bathed it in iron and back to the logwood. Then I did a wash over it with soliel paint. It's very uneven, but not in a totally bad or unfixable way. That really showed up worse in the picture. I'll fix some of the worst of it later.

This one is a little different just because we know what John Owen basically looked like from contemporary portraits. I am using the John Greenhill portrait of him, which is the most detailed and I think captured his eyes best. I love his eyes in that one. It's also the only portrait including the man's actual hair. But I'm also using a few others for reference so it won't look just like that one-I think it is a tad idealized after all. I sketched it out and am pleased with the sketch. So far the big piece looks okay-I have to make the hook in his nose more apparent and work on the mouth.

As you can also see, while Athanasius is very low contrast, John Owen will be quite high contrast. The white layers have been rather heavy thus far, so I haven't added as many and I have a good imprint. I found a nice slubby black/grey duppioni that would do well for the background-not too shiny. I should probably buy some. I'm not as sure how I am going to work the background yet. John Owen is hard to pin down, but I am working with his work on communion with God by/and the glory of Christ at the moment-hense the name. I have some shadowy ideas on that, but I haven't come up with anything concrete. So I'll just work on the face for now.

With work and school, I don't have so much time to work on this, but I am thinking I will need at least some distraction some time or feely class will make me tear my hair out. So it's there, waiting. And these portraits require a fair bit of drying time and are easy to just pick up and work on a little here and there, so I think it will be ideal.

Behbeh Head Sez

School makes blogging hard.

Happy Birthday

Kay I know he didn't like the attention, but once every 500 years isn't going to hurt.

I am a Thesaurus...

Thesaurus-a storehouse, repository, or treasury.

As you all know I am a book fiend. I love getting books, though especially good ones. As you also know my dad bequeathed his books to me. So mama is renting her house out and going to come and live in Regina full time, which means I have to remove my books.

Hercules thought his tasks were difficult.

So I currently have books in every imaginable space at the moment. I started putting them into my library thing, but got tired of that pretty quickly since books older than the mid 60s apparently didn't need ISBN numbers. Pheh.

Our already messy and pulled apart house is becoming a repository for the stacks of books I am sorting roughly by subject.

My old room is housing drama, classic liturature and some general fiction. We've been able to contain that into only a few boxes, which is cool. I haven't delved into the underside of my bed yet though and I think there are some others there.


The hallway is home to Canadian History, with one box being almost entirely books written by Pierre Burton. There is of course plenty on Riel which I threatened mama not to let her friends have.


Beside that is Modern History, WWI and WWII, English history, primary source documents, Mediaeval history as well as books about Churchill in particular. I found some cool magazines about the Parliamentarian period in England, those will probably fit in here too somewhere.



The dining room is where the theology, christian living, devotionals and the like have moved. Most of my books are here too, as you all know theology is my faevrit.

My dad had a lot of evangelical stuff for a liberal in the United Church. Ah so much the better... :)

I still can't find that copy of Good Morning Holy Spirit someone gave him. I was totally going to relish tearing it apart and throwing it page by page into the burning barrel. Of course I may have to come to terms with the possibility that he may have already beat me to the punch. I can't say I'm not disappointed. And surprised-dad would have had difficulty burning even the worst drivel printed in the form of a book.



The living room is holding general fiction (boxes are out of the picture), some cook books and hymn books that mama has stolen from several churches over the years. She tried to deny that it was really stealing and I asked her "uh didn't you just take them from the church without saying anything?" She said "Well yeah of course". uh, mama....

The only woman I know who would steal hymn books.

Most of those are hers (or the church's).





The kitchen is the repository for historical fiction, psych, political science, art, craft (on the floor) and books that I can't categorize just yet. There are some English and grammar books also, thesauruses and dictionaries.

Some of my children's books that I want to keep and the Moore history book with the only picture I have of my now famous shotgun toting Great Grandfather are there.

He doesn't look that bad for a fighter, though the picture is not that great-but then as far as we know he only got hit really really good in the face once in his fighting days and it was an ambush by the loser's girlfriend. I guess the moral of that is even if you have a super long reach, beware sneaky RC girls with heavy socks. Especially if you are wailing on their boyfriends.

Anyway back on task;






Here is mama's bookshelf, still holding vestiges of several genres. These still have to be sorted, but a lot of them are her mystery books. I've picked it apart and taken most of dad's books out, though I've still got some to pull out of there, as you can see. Mama does not for example own Hitler: a Study in Tyranny.







The killer book case now has most of the outer layer of the books removed, and a good portion of the second layer. It's like an onion, and I cry at the thought of what I am going to do with all my precious books. Richard came in and said he never realized we had that many books (I don't know where he was for most of our lives). Then he looked at the shelf and remarked that he had no idea they had been stacked two deep. Oh they were.

The tub contains mostly magazines.

The Durant set is large enough that I'm not sure what I am going to do with them. It would be hard to box them. There are a number of paperbacks there we will probably get rid of (sigh). Atlases and geography books and medical sets are still there as well as many textbooks and the vintage readers.


Speaking of vintage readers, look. It's the very first banned book I ever read:

Ah Mrs Lovequist...

I remember she used to keep her Dick and Jane readers in a locked cabinet, distribute them to us to read and then take them away and lock them in the cabinet again. This was a source of mystery to me for years until my dad told me she locked them up because the administration had banned Dick and Jane and told her if they ever caught her teaching with them she could be fired. So, she just made sure she never got caught. We were the only children in the province who learned to read with Dick and Jane in the 80's and 90's.

I was actually discussing this at a quilt show last September with two women who had been teachers and they gave me the last piece of information in the unraveling saga of Dick and Jane-why it was banned. They told me it was due to the way it portrayed the nuclear family and the role of women which some argued would hurt the feelings of children who did not come from that sort of background. No wonder Mrs. Lovequist thought they were a bunch of boobs and used it anyway!

That lady stuck it to the MAN. This made her awesome. She was also unafraid of the repercussions of taping the mouths of yappy six year olds shut. She just did not care. Her and my dad were both terrible subversives. Who can't appreciate the teacher that goes against policy for the good of their students? They did that.

Anyway, I have likely wasted enough time discussing the cataloging of the books and should get down to actually doing it. As in the cartoon, if I keep singing "I just want to organize the books" I'll never get around to actually organizing the books. Then I have to find space for them in the shed. This may prove difficult as there are already five or six boxes of them out there.

Baa Baa...uh...Different Coloured Sheep...

If you all recall, I only get occasional visits from fibre fairies. They forget about my house frequently enough and I think they do it on purpose to be annoying.

So to make up for their lack of foresight someone brought some wool to the post office for mama to give me. Did I say some wool? I meant lots of wool.

I'm sure you're wondering how much is "lots"? Well...lots:


Yes sir, three bags full (and a bucket too). You know the rest.

And she sent along an old drum carder too...


I admit my first thought was "man I just payed 60 bucks for a pair of hand carders a few months ago!" But hey I can get good use out of that. And I got more fibre-just in time for experiments. I am moving my supplies slowly to Regina...

Look what is all over my yard:



Yes, it is finally getting warm.

Ocean Colour (and) Scenes

Waaay back when I went down east I spent a lot of the time I wasn't sleeping trying to score local yarn. I especially sought the Fleece Artist/Hand Maiden stuff, and managed to get my hands on some lovely silks and wools. I found a beautiful kit of silk and silk blends in colours that remind me of beaches on the ocean and I thought it would be perfect-and it's so soft. This is totally petting yarn.

Anyway it took me a while to quit petting only and get around to starting it, and when I did I decided to knit it continental so that I could use a stitch I had seen on the interweb called a Norwegian purl. Basically you don't have to throw the yarn back and forth repeatedly when doing K1 P1. I hate doing ribs and the like for that reason, so I gotta say I love whoever thought of the Norwegian purl stitch.

I couldn't get out of knitting in the round though (which I also hate), and it took some time to get the hang of the continental style. It's meant to be better for lefties, but knitting is the one thing I have always done right handed-mostly because in order to do crochet or tatting or a litany of other things left handed, one controls the tool with the left hand and thread with the right. So my natural inclination is to control the thread with my right and basically manipulate the needles with the left.

So yeah continental took getting used to, and it's harder to keep tight. I do have to say it's about 900 times more efficient. I still can't do a normal continental purl stitch though, just the Norwegian. It's totally beyond me-so back to English for most things I think. It's actually nice to switch out between the two styles, as your hands don't get as tired.

I had part of one sleeve left to do on this since like June. I knew I'd have to rip out the neck as it was too big and was procrastinating because I hate ripping and picking up. But the last time I was down at Broadview, I decided it was time to get it done. I finished the arm, ripped out the neck and decreased it by 18 stitches altogether. It worked.

Here it is after blocking (silk stretched exponentially).


So I have my oceany sweater now. It's very basic, but I like that as the yarn is showcased by it's simplicity. I didn't even realize until I looked at this picture that the pattern is like honeycomb. Hey cool.

And I won't get arrested while wearing it I see-gotta watch anything that covers my collarbones as they are sharp enough to be considered concealed weapons when I wear turtlenecks.

Right around the same time I got it done, the Hellions arrived. So here for random enjoyment, is a picture I took of hellion #2 doing his patented villain face:


He was unfortunately just pulling out of the face when I took the pic. Normally his tongue is sticking through his teeth and his eyes are crossed. Gotta say I am impressed because the kid has this look down even to the one squinty eye-very consistant. That takes dedication.

But damn that kid is a ham. No idea where he gets it from.

On a totally unrelated note, especially for Ser; this is why we need a beautiful actress to play me in Theologica: the Motion Picture.

I know you don't want to look at that.

Man

There are days that you wish you could just smoke crack with Origen. This is one of mine. :(

Can we start skipping the month of March entirely (eta, except Stan's birthday for those in Stan's world)??

I Give a Glowing Review.

I am excited to announce the unearthing of a new and exciting scholastic field. My close personal friend whom I only know from the internet Dr Rey Reynoso PHD n. BS, TE has answered the call of nature as it were and given us a trilogy of works exploring a much neglected field of theological studies, Exretology.

These are destined to be classics referred to again and again, well worth the money spent. Indeed if you can only buy one set of theological books this year, forget the Puritan Divine Dr Owen. Go with the extretological Divine Dr Reynoso. I daresay these works are poised to become as authoritative in their field as Owen on the Holy Ghost. To be sure the bar in the fertile soils of exctretology has been set very high.

Indeed D. A. Carson has reputedly put aside his own studies on the subject declaring Dr Reynoso's work to be definitive.

Dr Reynoso is not afraid to get his hands dirty and do the hard work of mining the truths of scripture in this scholarly work. However though thorough his work is highly accessible for the unwashed masses who hold no doctorates. No abstruse prattling, rather Dr Reynoso talks down to your level of ignorance.

In the first work, the doctor lays the groundwork for his theses. The second narrows in on the theological and philosophical implications of incontinence. The last, set for release early this year, is the Dr's magnum opus. Dr Reynoso works hard in way of application, covering wiping, digging and indoor plumbing besides a host of other subjects. The breadth of this work is truly amazing.

You may leave unabashed praise and adulation for the Doctor's high level of education and therefore value or purchase the books here:
Centre for the study of Exretology.

Treasures old and new

Haha! I got books! New books from Stan and old books from Mem. All potential treasures. Admire the beauties-this makes me happy and I am thankful to know people who are willing to mail me happiness in codex form. The downside (if there is one) is that now I have to read this colossal stack (including all the ones I already had in the queue) before I can buy moar. That's okay, it's cold and ugly out and I am back on nights-all conducive to some good reading.

Oh and I also get to add them to my librarything. *cackling with glee*

I am the man

Remember my affliction and my wanderings,
the wormwood and the gall!
My soul continually remembers it
and is bowed down within me.
But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:
The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.

So it's been a few years since this was the daily cry of my heart. For awhile it seemed every day was one of lamenting, one saturated with the stench of blood, filth and death. And I guess most days still are. I would say I am a different person now than I was then, and it was in part on this anvil this new me was shaped. I remember the afflictions and the wanderings. As do we all.

Things are in better perspective now than they were then I suppose. But I've been thinking lately about the gospel of the man who has seen affliction again from this new perspective-I guess I'm in a reflective mood and things keep reminding me of my time of wallowing in it. It is still powerful, still horrifying and still beautiful.

At the time I wept many tears and spilled much ink (probably melodramatically) echoing and pondering the cries of the suffering poet of the lamentations-especially the central work of the book, the third lament. The only one that carried in it words of hope, the one that personified the horror and points to life in death. It is pure gospel.

It is a world of judgment and pain into which steps the man of the lament. He is the archetype of human experience. He suffers God's wrath. He is brought down in darkness, walks in death. As we do. He is a chilling mirror to the torment of our souls.

To think that when God became a man, when he entered the broken world clothed in flesh, it was to this he came. This was the cry he took upon himself and made his own. Jesus wept at the death of Lazarus and perhaps this is what he cried; I have seen affliction. The wail of agony from the man suffering in his sins became his-indeed none could take it as he did. And he did take it-to the grave and back again. It was he who lay in the dust silently with our yoke of iron around his neck-a yoke that strangled and killed, one that no man could bear. But he bore it. And there in the midst of death and judgment he came giving a yoke that is easy, one of life and hope.

Though it may be hard to see in the darkness of the pit of despair, hope is there. For he is there. The man who was filled with our disgrace and came near when we were in the pit. He came, the man who was God himself, and showed that he had not cast us off forever. There in the pit of death he descended to us. There he wept for our destruction, and there he redeemed our lives as his was vindicated when he rose. We don't deserve this dark and painful grace, the beauty and power of the cross. We are scum and refuse. Yet he takes up our case.

The years have abated the sorrows with which I cried this lament. It is however as stark and profound a proclamation of the gospel as ever. Though I no longer struggle through it, it still has the power to make me weep-though now from a new perspective. Praise God that he has given such voice to the cries of our hearts and more than that taken them himself in the person of Christ.

The Lord indeed is good to those whose hope is in him.

More colour to see...

I am sure you guys remember my assertion that natural dyers love natural media because we see colour differently than other people. At least you should since I only posted that a month ago and I don't think dementia is setting in for any of you yet.

Anyway to test the theory, I found a cool little colour IQ test. Because it is a hue gradation the colour of one's screen shouldn't affect it.

So I scored a goose egg. However that happens to be a perfect score. I did it again more quickly and scored an unfortunate four (that would be two switched around)-probably could have gotten another zero if I had done it more carefully. So I have almost perfect colour recognition-this is grist for the mill of my theory.

Someone else take it and tell me what you get. I want more grist.

I always get a second go. It's like grace.

So Stan is doing memes again. This one involves finding the nearest book, going to page 123, going to the fifth sentence on that page and finally posting the three succeeding sentences. Here is my first go at it.

Hume took Locke's theory of meaning as his point of departure, and drew conclusions which were at once more radical and more disturbing than those of Berkeley.

As already noted, Hume presented his philosophy as though it began from a natural science of the human mind, being the results of observations which could be confirmed by his readers by direct introspection. He distingushed among the contents of the mind 'impressions' and 'ideas'.

Roger Scruton A Short History of Modern Philosophy

I would like it if it was something other than philosophy. Hume gave Scots such a bad name and we don't like to talk about it. He probably didn't wear a kilt either that nancyboy. So I am going to pick the next one in the bookshelf that I like better than philosophy (that is most things that are not math).

The knight urges his horse and comes to the mound,
alights nimbly, and makes fast to a tree
The reigns and his noble steed with a rough branch.
Then he goes to the mound and walks around it.
Wondering to himself what it could be.
It had a hole at the end and on either side,
And was covered all over with patches of grass,
And was hollow inside; nothing but an old cave,
Or a fissure in an old rock: What to call it he could hardly tell.

The thing is the format of the book (which I like very much) puts on pg 123 the (dull but totally readable) modern English translation of the original on page 122:

The knyght kachez his caple and com to the lawe,
Lightez doun lufyly and at a lynde tachez
The rayne and his riche with a roghe braunche.
Thenne he bowez to the berwe, about hit he walkez
Debatande with hymself quat hit be myght.
Hit had a hole on the ende and on ayther syde,
And overgrowen with grasse in glodes aywhere,
Abd al watz holw inwith, nobot an olde cave,
Or a crevisse of an olde cragge, he couthe hit noght deme with spelle.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

I am sure mem must love this work because mem loves alliteration and such a masterpiece of it would not have escaped his notice. Also mem likes JRR Tolkien junk and I know he did a version of it which was, predictably, not as good as the original.
For that I think mem must do the meme.

Regula Fidei

The Church, though dispersed through the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and their disciples this faith:
in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them;
and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation;
and in the Holy Spirit, who proclaimed through the prophets the dispensations of God, and the advents, and the birth from a virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the ascension into heaven in the flesh of the beloved Christ Jesus, our Lord, and His manifestation from heaven in the glory of the Father “to gather all things in one,” and to raise up anew all flesh of the whole human race, in order that to Christ Jesus, our Lord, and God, and Saviour, and King, according to the will of the invisible Father, “every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess” to Him, and that He should execute just judgment towards all; that He may send “spiritual wickednesses,” and the angels who transgressed and became apostates, together with the ungodly, and unrighteous, and wicked, and profane among men, into everlasting fire; but may, in the exercise of His grace, confer immortality on the righteous, and holy, and those who have kept His commandments, and have persevered in His love, some from the beginning, and others from their repentance, and may surround them with everlasting glory.

Irenaeus, Against Heresies Book I, Ch X

(isn't that sentence on the Holy Spirit just about the longest you've ever seen??)

Warning for Stan: Spoiler-if you like surprises in the mail, don't look any further. If you don't care or you're not Stan, go right ahead.

For those other two of you not in the know I have been working on a piece related to Athanasius for Stan for the last few months. It was designed at roughly the same time, and they were meant to be the beginning of a series.

Anyway because I am horribly lazy and fickle, only the two were ever designed, so I created this one for Stan in blue and copper/browns. It is a picture of Irenaeus, backed by Polycarp and lastly John (which I like to think is the Apostle just because I do and it makes the picture work). So it worked out like this:



The coppery lines across the faces is just the end of a thread I am using to quilt the background.

I still have that same old indigo vat. It freezes solid every year and every year I am surprised that it revives. I ran out of lye so it took an entire container of soda ash and over a week to balance the vat this time around, it was that acidic. But I did it-in fact the indigo gave the best colour I've ever gotten with it. I threw some silks and cottons in also at the time, with varying lovely colours. The colour is stunning and is a wonderful example of my earlier post on the luminosity of Natural dyes. I almost didn't want to paint over it. I darkened it with the tannin from some tea and it mellowed the colour and deepened it for a week or so afterward. This is another wonderful thing about natural dyes-surprises! The photo does not do the colour justice really.

Because the printer was being rather prickish in enlarging the image, I got to learn to make my very own projector from a shoebox, a camera lens, a mirror and a christmas tree light. It sort of worked-kind of. I don't want to do it again.

Here is the pen rendering of the design which was enlarged to become the pattern.

Because of the alkalinity of the vat (okay and because I could not find the noil I had used for Athanasius) I decided to use linen. While it worked out okay and I think that is the reason I got such a good colour, I don't think I'll use linen again. It started to pill as I scrubbed paint on there. The slubs also made an even layer of paint impossible. You can see the slubs and it isn't smooth like the application on Athanasius. It is also smaller, so there is less detail.

Except for those snags the paint went on okay. I am relatively okay with it.

I used the same pattern I had made in gesso for Athanasius to do the rubbing for the background. What can I say, I'm lazy.

I had a hard time deciding how I would add the words to the bottom, so I left it for awhile. Eventually I decided to do a rubbing so I used some old cerne relief paint that I had to pipe out the letters on a piece of paper and then rub over top of them with the copper paintstick. The piece moved when I went to do a second go over at the top, so the letters are not so clear there. I did go back and add some more paint in to render them clearer and some blue ink to make them stand in relief a little more. I actually like the deconstructed ancient look of the letters, even if they are likely quite difficult to read. It is the first part of the above quote that is used. I am thinking I might brown out the letters a little because as copper as they are now they are a little overwhelming.

I found a piece of dupionni that sort of mimicked the copper of indigo blossoms reasonably by being copper shot with blue. I decided to use it for the backing (it is not as orange as it appears in the photo because of the blue warp).

I've still got most of the quilting to do, but I don't foresee many snags there. I put the batting between the linen and the silk, and the edges of the silk are already finished and ready for hanging. Any day I don't have to do a binding is a good one. The linen is a little wonky, but I think it's livable. I'll update when the quilting is done, probably in the next few weeks.



ETA: Here it is with I think the quilting done. As you can see I unfortunately placed it a little crooked, but it hangs okay over all, better than I thought it might given the fact that the centre is so much heavier.

I should quilt the faces to contour them, but I am really wary of doing so. I might and I might not. The colours read truer on the first photo than on this one. Of course the silk is not so orange as it is in either.

Richard looked at it and said "Charlton Heston as John!" Okay so I guess it does kind of look like Charlton Heston. Haha. I hope you don't mind that Stan.

In Christ...

A Christian is an impregnable person. He is a person that never can be conquered. Emmanuel became man to make the church and every Christian to be one with him. Christ's nature is out of danger of all that is hurtful. The sun shall not shine, the wind shall not blow, to the church's hurt. For the church's Head ruleth over all things and hath all things in subjection. Therefore let all the enemies consult together, this king and that power, there is a counsel in heaven which will disturb and dash all their counsels. Emmanuel in heaven laugheth them to scorn.

Richard Sibbes

As I'm sure you all know I love Richard Sibbes (have you read the Bruised Reed yet?). I was reminded of this quote once again by the struggles of an acquaintance.It's one of my faves.

Sibbes here reminds me a little of Torah and Numbers in particular. Nothing could prevent God from delivering his people, not the many enemies without nor the people delivered. Just so, nothing can prevent Christ from fully redeeming his church. He has already done it in fact and if we are in Christ, we have nothing to fear from what may be done to us or even from ourselves and our own weaknesses. Even the enemy of self is under his subjugation. For those of us bleeding out from self-inflicted wounds it is powerful to remember that he controls all things and works them together for the good of his people. Of course this turns our normal perception on it's head for it means that when evil comes there is ultimately goodness hidden in the evil which we receive by Christ. All our sufferings are good, even those self-inflicted ones. Evil then is turned in on itself by the power of the crucified and risen Christ.

Of course we are not safe from evil because we are special, get things right, or feel the right way, but because we are in Christ. We are weak and we fail and pain comes, but Christ has succeeded even when we feel like utter failures. Christ is victorious even when we feel like we have been completely conquered by others' cruelty or our weaknesses. No suffering harms us in Christ. In Christ. No two sweeter words may comfort us in trial. All the promises of God find their yes in Christ. That is why it is through him we utter our amen to God-for his glory.

Ultimately it is all about him and his glory, glory revealed in suffering, Christ's and ours. This is why God upholds us-for Christ's sake and for the glory of his Name. Not because one day we would "pay him back" and be a good return investment. No from beginning to end, salvation is of God and he alone. That is why we may rest so securely in it, That is why we can laugh with God to the scorn of his enemies (and our old man is certainly one of them) and not fear what they may or may not do. He will do what he has set out to accomplish, and he has set out to make us his own sons, at one with him. These sufferings are his way of making it happen.

And finally when we are revealed as the sons of God and with Christ in his glory we will see just how powerful our God is. On that day I'm sure we'll laugh at how foolish we were to cower fearfully in the impenetrable fortress that is Christ-which even now we reside in.


Anyway that is where my mind has been wandering lately.

Seeing Colour, Abrash and the Trinity

Some people have asked me about my work in natural dyes. It seems like so much work, they ask, why even bother? Wouldn't it just be easier to just use acid or procion powders, as well as more predictable and safer?

Well yeah actually it would. But though I also work with synthetics, natural dyes have something that the ease of the synthetic can not replace. Some I am sure work in natural dyes because they like to play chemist, but for most of us I think it is because the colour of a natural dye is simply beautiful in a way that can't be mimicked in a synthetic.

I have read many impassioned arguments for the superior beauty of natural colour from it's advocates which is met with confusion and lost on those who don't work in the media. I know enough people who see no difference in the blue of indigo and the indigo blue of a synthetic, yet to me they are clearly not the same colour. So I have begun to think that maybe those who work in natural dyes (or with natural pigments) actually see colour differently than other people. Perhaps we see more colours or distinguish them better?

What we are seeing can be put under the umbrella of what is called abrash (one of many spellings) in the rug trade. All natural dyes, no matter how carefully one may dye them, have abrash-that is variation in hue, chroma and value from dyelot to dyelot or even in the same dyelot. It can be quite noticeable or at times can be very subtle, however it is always present in a naturally dyed item. Even one that at first glance appears to be a single colour always upon closer inspection is comprised of many other colours making it sparkle like facets do for a gemstone.

I think this may be the reason we prefer natural pigment, abrash makes for a richly diverse and luminous colour, a colour that obviously contains other colours. The cold sea of uniformity that is common to the chemically uniform synthetic dye is dreadfully austere and boring. All unity, no diversity. One must take specific steps to try and artificially achieve Abrash-which some actually do (okay okay some is me. I always tinker with the dyes and synthetic dyes gone bad are some of my favorites...) but it is never as beautiful. However this isn't as plain to everyone as it is to those of us who love it.

One might say natural media reflects the trinity, heh. Of course it shouldn't surprise that creations do reflect their creator. A synthetic dye is so singular and homogenous like the men that developed it. A natural dye experiences a little bit of perichoresis of it's own. And of course even though it is beautiful in it's complexity, it isn't always apparent or appreciated by those who don't want to see it.

Everything can be related to theology some way or another.

10 years from now I'll be even older! And more cantankerous.

Stan tagged me to do a short meme with a bizarre mix of questions. They are;

Q1. If you were to be in ministry 10 years from now (whether you’re in ministry now or not) what would you like to be doing and where?

Q2. If you could wake up tomorrow with a degree and all the learning that would have gone with it from any seminary which one would you pick and why?

Q3. What’s your poison: donuts, beer, wine, pizza, chocolate, twinkies, key-lime pie?

1. The Lord is a compassionate and gracious God slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness. Therefore I surmise that due to this great love for his children, he would keep me out of ministry of any kind, both now and 10 years from now.

As an aside I am hoping he does this by quickly returning 10 years before 10 years from now. Like say September. Now I'm not predicting that it will be September, make no mistake-because as my life quote says "God often works by contraries" and therefore I am sure he would make certain not to come back in September just because I said he would. I tend to think that as soon as someone gives a date I can rest assured he is not coming then. So I'm not saying he will, but I wouldn't complain if he did.

So I'm crossing my fingers for new earth...

2. Uh Oxford at the time of Owen? Then I could see if he actually talked like that also. I am convinced he really thought in latin all the time.

3. I consume theology books. Next to that I react badly to caffeine, but I still drink tea and pop.

I don't think my readership extends to five, but anyone who reads this and feels like doing it can consider themselves tagged.

It's That Season

It's May long and not bad outside. This means one thing.


(silk in alum on the left, logwood being extracted and reduced a little on the right)

That's right: dyeing accidents experiments!!


I was so happy to have found the big canning pots this spring after having lost them two years ago by putting them somewhere "safe" to winter. I thought I could extract my logwood in a little pot and transfer each extraction to the large pot. Happiness dissipated when I discovered the one had a hole rusted right through. And I always find these things out the hard way, like coming out to wonder hey why is there dark liquid leeching out from underneath the pot...?

Look at that hole. Damn. Now I have to find some new ones.


And now I also have a nice purple ring on the step. Glorious dye-wasted!>:(


I told mama "dyeing accidents!" She said "wood makes that colour?" Such things no longer phase her. Then again the porch always was a catch all for messy projects and I think the wood has been every colour it could be. One time an entire 5 gallon pail of blue fibre reactive dye spilled on the floor. I can't remember how that one happened...I think it was the dog. Well whatever it makes the place more interesting, and we have another story to tell to go along with the others. At least it isn't india ink.

Logwood is an indicator though and I'm tempted to throw some ammonia and/or vinegar on the step. Just to see. ETA: so I did. The vinegar made it fade to yellow. The ammonia darkened the purple and ate what paint was left on the step. Heh.